Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Grim Grimoire (Latest version: Beta 0.993)

[Eternal]

Hey RRS, thanks for the posts, and welcome to FFH!

I'll begin by addressing the tweak patch: I'm familiar with it and have no problem with it, but I didn't alter the starting team because I like how balanced the starting jobs are to begin with. They each cover a niche that's useful in the early battles. I always considered changing up Warrior to Monk and Soldier to White Mage. It's not something I've given a lot of thought to though, honestly.

As far as the listed disadvantages are concerned, they're pretty valid. That said, raising weak allies becomes easier as more defensive skills are given to you. Protect, Shell, and Reflect are all very helpful. Enemies having more abilities than you is intended: it makes you look at battles differently than being able to just brute force them as you could in Vanilla FFTA.

Clan Dip is optional superboss material, as stated in the changelog, as reference to how terrible they were originally. Take 'em on for fame and glory!

Thanks for the feedback about Moogle Lance! I'll fix that ASAP!

And thanks for all the feedback- it's very helpful! Let me know how your playthrough goes!

[rrs_kai]

Glad i could be of help

The gameplay feels a lot smoother as units have more MP pool (currently Lv.8 party) to sustain protect/shell/cure/esuna.

Also the RES stat for Templar's(7.6->6.9) and Bishop's(7.6) feel low, in the vanilla FFTA Templar was a mage-bane class and having low RES seems to be defeating the purpose IMO. Do you find it viable to increase their RES by 1pt to both classes to compound the fact that they are the slowest bangaa.

I find this necessary because the moogle Mediator/Gadgeteer is high in DEF and highest in RES, very tanky for the slowest moogle (still faster than Bangaa) with decent attack and magick.

The moogles seem to the best tanks (my bard/animist is) and have managable speed. IMO this seems overpowered since all they do is buff/debuff (i am aiming for the Mediator class to make Montblanc the best tank). So, shouldn't the Bangaa should share the same trait being slower than moogles, and looking like big and powerful armoured lizards? (although they look closer to the horses with the headgear, also lizards have scaly skin).

Else maybe consider an increase Templar's HP stat to something like 7.2->8.6
This opinion maybe biased because I picture the Bangaa race as a high endurance class. Also I like his portrait and sprite alot (armoured horssse *ahem*  lizard).

I think the fencer is a lot better of a class (swallowtail's improvement is well thought-out). I think she need an upgradable class to move into.
+1 to the idea of footwork and baldework, this reminds me of Raptor or Ravager who also had Tenacity(power increases with debuffs) to combo it with.
Honestly its a great idea (incorporating the fencers battle stance) though I may not use it becaure the Bard's 'Rime' boosts all stats. Lowering your defence and waitng for a turn can turn out to be a risky measure (more costly than its worth IMO). Still great idea and adds homogenity to the classes nature.
Maybe something like Bladework->attack up and haste (or is it overpowered?)

on a side note, I like this mod's emphasis on defence because in the vanilla FFTA protect/shell were just an intermediary excuse until the player unlocks better classes from whreon the game becomes ruled by speed (Assassin).

P.S. The spellblade from FFTA2 is a great upgrade to fencer. Maybe the Gladiators elemental blades could be added to her skill set (they look so cool in FFTA but were terrible in FFTA2).

I found another bug.

I just liberated Giza Plains (dispatch) and then proceed to fight the 'White Flower' mission. All behaviour was proper.
Giza plains then got attacked. Now liberating the area the Lv.9 Antilion(blue) ran away used 'Lv.3 expose' on itself lowering its own stats (probably thinking of it as a buff).
Not sure if this happens only here because in 'White flower' there were 3 antilions (two Lv.9 one Lv.8) but none of them used that move.

*edit*
-The Bard ran away and used 'Hide' to become invisible and then the game crashed. This is my first time seeing a Bard with that move in his skill set.
-Restarted the map and now there are 2 Antilions (Lv.8 and Lv.10) and one Jawbraker. The LV.10 Antilion used 'Lv.3 expose' on itself again.
-Completed the mission, this time the bard didn't use Hide.

My thoughts : this behaviour probably means that the AI is confusing this skill with some other buff skill because its not checking the level of the target (itself).

*edit2*
-Are the Antilions weak to Fire? I don't remember this in vanilla FFTA. I could be wrong.
-The ice shield now negates ice, neutral to lightning and is weak to fire. Is this an intended change or a bug?
-What does Earth heal do? Single target heal for 12MP that doesnt remove blind (this is my experience). What is it intended to do? The amount being healed is same as cure...so whats the advantage of using Earth heal?

Another bug

When encountering Sporhm Knights their monk cheered their fighter. Marche(DEF 214) used backdraft on the fighter and got counterd for 24dmg and the fighter lost his buff. When he normally hit Montblanc(DEF 215) he hit for 24dmg which means that counter neglected the cheer buff.
Can anyone verify this?

Overpowered ability (I hope its a bug)

The ability in question is Abosrb MP

When facing Clan Marble their Bard(with half MP) used haste on their Fencer and she absorbed 3MP. This could potentially mean that high MP healing skills/buffs can simply be used on allies for MP recovery.
I don't know how Absorb MP behaves in vanilla FFTA as I have not used it, I doubt it actually exists. I remember Green mages with this skill in FFTA2. I could be wrong here, if so correct me.

I cannot verify if this works on self-cast as I have no unit with this ability and that Fencer has no MP using skills that terget self.

Is this bugged or random skill? - Paeon

I see that it always shows +30 on tool tip and understood that it probably should be MP restoration. When targeting this skill it highlights only the selected character but when used the following happens:
-Once it restored zero to all units in 2AOE and cast reflect on affected units.
-Next time it restored zero to all units 2AOE and cast regen on affected units.
-Another time it damaged the closest enemy in the 2AOE and stopped (didnt affect others in AOE).
Was this skill supposed to just restore 30MP? It is not doing that.

I think its still using the AOE of skill:Friend and cast the effects of summons like carbuncle, kirin and some other damaging summon like Ifrit.

On a side note, I have 4 Bard skills, namely Paeon, Lulluby, Minnie and Rime. Among these Rime has a elevation limit of 3h, is this intended or just the limitation of previous skill (whatever it replaced). If so then consider making the elevation of all song skills the same (logic being distance how far the Bard's voice can be heard). Maybe even make it so as not to cross walls (same logic voice cant be heard through walls).

Also, how do i get the small text under the portrait which says the name of your class (like mediator)....i tried the dragoon, but it didn't show its name?
*edit* I got it, its personal text

I honestly hope that my posts are not rudely imposing anything/anyone and are being useful
(Excuse my ignorance of forum ethics).

On an entirely unrelated note to the game...what is more ethical?

1. To post every thought or bug in detail (which I think is helpful and reduces need for furthur clarificaiton).

or

2. Just list important stuff because you already know how they work (less clutter).

Should I even post my thoughts?

About the game
Here is how I am winning: The AI puts reviving allies at top priority (using phoenix down, life..etc) so taking him out means a great advantage. Even if there is an OHKO character nearby the CPU will always revive, I am using this to force the CPU to avoid KOing my weaker units.
Backdraft is powerful, never used in vanilla FFTA but here it does quite the damage. Turned Marche the white mage (on road to paladin) into a KO machine.

[Jumza]

Maybe edit your posts so that you aren't doing 6 posts in the same thread consecutively... In one day o.o Otherwise your random and thorough thoughts are great for helping the mod/game maker to understand whats going on

[Darthatron]

Hey rrs_kai, I merged all of your posts. I appreciate your dedication to helping, but maybe try to keep it to one post every 12 hours (which you can edit as much as you like), so it doesn't get too cluttered.

Also feel free to join us on the IRC; Eternal and I are both frequently online there, so it may be easier to sort out some bugs that way.

[rrs_kai]

Thanks for merging the posts @Darthatron 

I have no clue on tech mod/hack...and am also new to forums in general (though i read a lot).

Also, how to IRC?
I will be available @ 19:00 (GMT+5:30)...if that helps

[Darthatron]

Click this link and press "Go" and you will be connected to the IRC.

http://client01.chat.mibbit.com/?channel=%23ffh&server=irc.ffhacktics.com&nick=rrs_kai

It's just a chat room with people from this site.

[rrs_kai]

A few more observations

:::Bugs:::
-'Mug' bypasses reaction abilities
-Maintenance not working for NoMu (stole from Clan Dip's Sage)

:::INCONSISTENCIES:::
-Shieldbearer (bronze shield) costs 200AP for soldier/warrior but 100AP for fencer
-Immunity (survival vest) costs 300AP for bluemage but 100AP for beastmaster
-Maintenance works fine for humans and moogles

:::CORRECTIONS:::
-LV.3 expose seems to target most valid units (friend and foe)...so excuse my previous post on questioning its behaviour and calling it bugged.

:::THOUGHTS:::
-Chakra is single-target (with 1AOE range) and heals less just above 1/3rd (depending on mag.pow) that of first-aid(also no regen), just to remove a debuff.
In vanilla FFTA the paladin's nurse was better because of 1AOE heal+recover.
-Earth heal is single target 0AOE and costs 12MP but heals same as cure (8MP) with no added effect.

:::PROGESS:::
At the first totema fight. Also beat Clan Dip (party Lv.16)

[SilverAuron]

So, I have played this game for a while, wich in this case means 125+ hours of game play... Yeah...
So I have a lot to say, but i will start with,  I really like the general idea and how fresh and new it feels compared to vanilla.
That sayd I've found some bugs, along with quite a few things that I find very odd.
First the bugs, I hear some are already being fixed but I'm not sure so I'll poit them out anyways, also, I'm playng 0.95, so no old patches.
First, the no animation disappierence, it happens when a moogle knight uses revive, or a mediator uses a pistol, also when adramelek uses an ability, I don't remember wich one, or when an assassin uses mokuton, or a vampire reacts to damage with autoregen, on that note, it doesn't work, whenever it is triggered it is automatically reflected on a nearby unit, and if there is none near enough it crashes the game. When a unit desappiers that way there is a chance that the game  could randomly crash any moment after the bug.
Another bug is that some equipments display abilities that cannot be learned or are empty, so far I've found, drain for the sage (it's a raves skill now so alright but it is stil displaied on a energymace), the osafune skill, it is not even displayed in the learning abilities tab, and the ability without name in the aoneflute for the beast master, I stll havent tested what it does, and the 0 ap  ability named - in the cinqueda that some thiefs use to no effect but cannot be learned, also ravers can't  equip shields and for extension cannot learn shied bearer and the dragon and molboro souls both teach dragon morph, while genji armor and mithrill soul teach both weapon def+ .
The item prices thing you already know so ok.

Now on to the "odd" things.
First, why are combo abilities completely eraser bar for the auto-equipped one on marche, lunge combo and monk combo.  I feel like the combo sistem was very cool but even if you wanted to eliminate it than why live those two? Couldn't you live at least one per race?
Second, the totema are now almost completely useless, apart from the rare cases where  adramelek or mateus do decent damage, also why do they target every one now?
Why give classes that cannot lean aniting from them the ability to use some equipment, like the knives for the black mage. It just adds items to skroll...
I get that you like FFT, <I do too, but having to learn archer abilities to unlock the thief is stupit, it was in FFT too...
The mediator is beasically useless since you coul do every thing it does with other skillsets  and better at that. The same goes for the green mage, they both can be esely out done AND have nothing to add to theyr race, not that gadgetier where any goodd but still.
Also, ok it's more balanced to have powerfull abilities like dualwield and doublemagic early, but I'm at mission 23 ad still I  haven't seen them, but the enemies where using since very near the beginning. I've only been able to use double magic thanks to eldena, on that note, blind is not doublecastable even thou it is a red magic spell.
I also find quite jarring that ultima is so weak,  it does less than half the damage of gigaflare for 5 times the mp, why would I ever use it? Is it physycal based?
Talking about nu-mus the raver abilities are all kinda weak, i suspect they are magic based which would make no sense and all. Why are katana (the plural for katana is katana so PLEASE don't write katanaS) 2h? It makes no sense unles you make a dinstinction between the ninja/assassin ones and the samurai ones, because it would make dualwield unusable by a ninja, Oh yeah, dualwield doesn't work on moogles, i've tried it both mastered and not mastered, it just doesn't.
Last thing, making equipment become aviable via story could be good but ass it is now it's just frustrating because until mission 15 you only make mission aquired items and very basic equipments aviable, whise enemies have very powerfull ones, could I suggest to make the half way equipments at about misson 7?
Ok I'm done for now, and sorry for any mistakes I surely have done, also all my observations are just my thoughts don't take them as  statements.

EDIT: I forgot to ask if it was possible to have a chart with the stats growths of all the classes, it would help a lot!

[Eternal]

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback! There's a lot to go over, so I'll try and take it one point at a time, please bear with me here.

RRS' posts:

-Templars already are getting an RES and HP boost in the next update, so I'm way ahead of you on that!

-The Bard's Rime skill is intended to be a late-game skill, so you won't have access to it when you're using Fencers. To that end, Rime- and the other Bard skills- are still being toyed around with, so it might not even exist in its current state later on.

-FFTA's AI is dumb. It used Lv. 3 Expose to debuff -your- party, but it didn't realize the tradeoff of affecting itself, too. The AI does this a lot, even though I minimized AI stupidity where I could. It does this with Roulette, too.

-Hide is one of many skills that are being given new animations to prevent crashing. Basically, certain abilities call certain animations that- as they were never intended to be on certain races- call sprite frames that don't exist, causing the unit's sprite to vanish and the game to crash. I try to catch as many of these as possible, but it's nearly impossible to catch them all, so I thank you for pointing these out!

-Most elemental absorption is gone from the player's hands, so yes, Ice Shield is acting as it should!

-Earth Heal heals HP, White Flame cures debuffs. All of these changes will be noted in-game soon, since we now have a text editor. Basically, I wanted to remove redundancy in the Elementalist's skillset between those two skills.

-Absorb MP also existed in Vanilla, but it mattered very little there since MP was restored each turn. It's actually one of the best Reactions in the game now because of the MP change. It's acting exactly how it should- it's just that more skills trigger it now. Absorb MP won't trigger if a caster uses a skill on itself, though.

-Paeon is supposed to restore MP, but for the life of me I can't figure out -why- it's not working. Your guess is actually a good one, and one I'd not thought of before. I'll have to do some tinkering with it. As for vertical tolerance, I agree that having a vertical limit is a good idea. I'll play around with that as well.

-Mug will be fixed in the next version. I already know about that one!

-Maintenance should also be (hopefully) fixed in the next version- I was also aware of that. It was pretending to be Dual Wield.

-Shieldbearer/Immunity are good-bad bugs. I'm aware of them, but I'm not sure if I want to fix them since it makes them more accessible to the jobs and races that actually need it.

-Chakra will hopefully restore MP soon, but I'm holding off until I figure out why Paeon is bugged.

-Backdraft is actually NERFED from Vanilla. That should give you an idea of how strong it was.

And please, keep posting your thoughts! They're greatly helpful!

SilverAuron:

-All the ability name on weapon bugs have been fixed already for the next update.

-The ultimate goal long-term is to turn Combos into Movement Abilities, but we haven't really crossed that road yet. We're just building the foundation, so to speak.

-Totema have been rebuffed for the next update and are quite useful again!

-Knives on Black Mages and Bows on Beastmasters were experiments to see if people would use them. Not only did they not use them, but it's buggy, so those have also been removed for the next update.

-Mediators and Green Mages are there because GG is a very buff and debuff oriented mod. Mediators add the much needed stat buffs/debuffs to the Moogle race, and Green Mages are the one source of AoE Haste and large-scale Protect/Shell, as well as the only source of Regen-casting in the game. They each fill a vital role that can't really be found elsewhere.

-Enemies will always be a little stronger than your party, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a challenge, especially given FFTA's AI. It gives you a taste of what to look forward to later!

-Ultima's MP cost is being revised for the next update, but it -should- be dealing more damage than Gigaflare. That said, Ultima has 2 AoE and ignores allies, meaning you can use it at will without worrying about injuring your party.

-Reavers are getting a new skillset. Eventually.

[SilverAuron]

Well that was very informative.
so you intend to completely substituite the combo mecanic, bummer for me, because a liked it, but it's also very interesting to hear what you're planning to do with it, it also makes sense to delete them.

Talking about the orator, i will argue that moogles already have more than enough buff/debuff between bard(wich bar some minor details are awesome kudos to you for making the pretty lame animist actually usefull) gunner(long range blind, silence, weapon/armor break) AND juggler. Orator just feels redundant, it can buff but the bard does it better, it can debuff but you can put enemies to sleep with the bard too, also severely cripple them with poison berserk stop and confusion with juggler and even more with the gunner, again redundant. What moogles don't have right now is power, moogle knights have been nerfed, and black mage only has 3 elements, so, maybi a magic class with access to more elements would be more usefull for them, as well as weapon attack+ and/or magic pow+, since they are the only class to not have either, and yes dualwiled could be good balancing if it worked, but it would still do nothing for magic. For the green mage, large spectrum shell/protect is pretty useless since the max party capacity is at 5 you coul very esely put them in star formation and buff them with normal shell/protect, esunaga is kinda neat but if I remember correctly it belonged to sage so yeah, also regen is not so usefull, I mean, if you have it, great, but if not it changes little to nothing, also a lot of skills now give it to you very easely if not automatically (autoregen, even more so when it's a vampire that put's it on you). The only very good spell they have is hastega wich belogns better to time mages, so as statd befor, redundant, also by having them instead of illusionist nu-mu and hume have access to less elements (both lose dark and earth, hume also loses water and wind while nu mu lose holy), they also were the most powerful mages so there is also magic growth to lose here.

Taking about equipment tough, I didn't mean for you to pot, say, judge coat at the 7th battle, but to go against  units who use kikuichimonji and diamond grea when you only have access to bronze is not very fair, what I ment was that by the time you unlock  for example, iron armour and elm, you already won form quests and randoms at least adamant/diamond, wich makes them useless even befor you got them.Think about it, I have something like 20 very powerfull shield (stolen/won) but the shop still only sells up to round shield (mission 23 to be completed).  Again these are only MY thoughs but I hope that they at least help you as player feedback. Also you pretty masterfully dodged my question about thief and archer ;P.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention, that with the equipments aviable in the shop untill mission 15 you CANNOT unlock black mage fot the moogles, because they only sell one weapon that lets you learn a bard ability.

[rrs_kai]

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback! There's a lot to go over, so I'll try and take it one point at a time, please bear with me here.
RRS' posts:

-Absorb MP also existed in Vanilla, but it mattered very little there since MP was restored each turn. It's actually one of the best Reactions in the game now because of the MP change. It's acting exactly how it should- it's just that more skills trigger it now. Absorb MP won't trigger if a caster uses a skill on itself, though.

-Backdraft is actually NERFED from Vanilla. That should give you an idea of how strong it was.

And please, keep posting your thoughts! They're greatly helpful!

-Absorb MP works on ally casts (Clan Dip's sage used raise and restored 75MP to their sumoner). Wonder how many races have access to this powerful reaction ability?
-Do bangaa's have access to Absorb MP....that would make Templars more of an anti-mage class (yes a Dota2 reference).

-Well backdraft only added fire element and no bonus damage in FFTA2, and yeah i did not use it in vanilla FFTA.

RRS' posts:

-Templars already are getting an RES and HP boost in the next update, so I'm way ahead of you on that!

-Yay, armoured lizards for the win (please do justice to their cool sprite and make them the tanks that the Bangaa race can take pride in).

-The only thing left is to give them access to 'Demon Fusion' from Disgaea 4 to make their sprite double the size (yes you will need shades to see them once that happens, their sanctity is too bright for normal LCD displays.....unless you are wearing shining armour yourself).

Taking about equipment tough, I didn't mean for you to pot, say, judge coat at the 7th battle, but to go against  units who use kikuichimonji and diamond grea when you only have access to bronze is not very fair, what I ment was that by the time you unlock  for example, iron armour and elm, you already won form quests and randoms at least adamant/diamond, wich makes them useless even befor you got them.

-I am in agreement with SilverAuron on this...battles last longer, classes have more prequisites, newer classes....maybe upgrading the shops after every Totema mission might work (i don't know how many upgrades there are).
-Also you could steal diamond gear from the Templar in Clan Dip (who are available from the beginning of clan wars).
-You can get more than one adamant armour this time?...from random battles?...wow

Glad i could be of help

Another bug

When encountering Sporhm Knights their monk cheered their fighter. Marche(DEF 214) used backdraft on the fighter and got counterd for 24dmg and the fighter lost his buff. When he normally hit Montblanc(DEF 215) he hit for 24dmg which means that counter neglected the cheer buff.
Can anyone verify this?

I know its a self quote (is it fine to self quote?) but it has not been adressed, is cheer not applying on reaction abilities a bug?

What moogles don't have right now is power, moogle knights have been nerfed

-Also agree on this...the moogles dont have a physical attack class. Mogknights atk growth nerf from 8.8->8.3 is only 0.1pt above juggler and mediator(8.2). IMO the nerf was unnecessay, the moogle race needs atleast one physical atk class.
-Moogle lance got nerfed but so did Air-Render.
-On the contrary their defensive skills have been improved, Mog guard now imbunes shell+protect as well as defend status, Mog shield gives regen+astra, Mog peek range is upto 8, which now should reduce DEF and RES (I have yet to verify these as I need to obtain more mog knight equipment and use one).
I will update when I get to use these skills and find their behaviour as described.

[SilverAuron]

-You can get more than one adamant armour this time?...from random battles?...wow

You could in vanilla too, so I'l assume you were talking about adamant (EDIT: looks like you did XD),no, I only have one BUT I still got it before unlocking plate mail in and iron armor in the shop, so yeah. Also It seems like clan dip tends to drop better equipment all around (got the 4 steal equop knives from them almost immediatly after unlocking clan wars).

-The only thing left is to give them access to 'Demon Fusion' from Disgaea 4 to make their sprite double the size  (yes you will need shades to see them once that happens, their sanctity is too bright for normal LCD displays.....unless you are wearing shining armour yourself).

Forget the dislpays, PEOPLE wouldn't be able to witstand it!

-On the contrary their defensive skills have been improved, Mog guard now imbunes shell+protect as well as defend status, Mog shield gives regen+astra, Mog peek range is upto 8, which now should reduce DEF and RES (I have yet to verify these as I need to obtain more mog knight equipment and use one).
I will update when I get to use these skills and find their behaviour as described.

As a matter of fact, yes they do, apart from mog peek that doesn't lower defences.


So I beat Remedy, and let me tell you Mr. Eternal, I'm torn between shouting at, or  kneeling before, you. She. Was. A. Bitch. But I could frog her AND the mateus with her for some reason °_°, don't know if bug or what, but that 10th try when I discovered this weakness was the only one were I stood a chance.
Any way I foud a couple more bugs, first usin ultima while having turbo MP equipped results in a freeze, probably it overflows the MP bit since it puts the displeyed cost to 254 (gigaflare and raise work perfectly at 100 and 150 respectively), I know you said you were planning to change the mp cost, but I thought that it coul be usefull to know.
Not really a bug, but remedy has her first A-ability set slot empty.
After using totema spells the toteme disappier and then freeze.
The shop sell remedy in two different spost directrly up and down of the phoenix down, but it only happens in the baguba shop.
Ultima is definetly physical since quin with 100~ more ATK does A LOT more damage than my magically inclined nu-mu.
Again, not a bug, but the megaflare ability you gave to the mateus hits everyone and looks like it does about the same damage than gigaflare, wich I find confusing °_°, but that's just me.

Now I would like to submit to you just a few random thoughts.
I was thinking that the samurai abilities would be a lot more usefull if they smart targeted, also since phoenix now only targets one character maybe it should cost less, like raise that is basically life but has a higher cost, also, is it possible to make azel babus and cid able to change job? Or make story characters dispatchable? Could you maybe take into account that the starting party could have a black or white mage hume? it Would add to the variety. And last, since mithril weapons will basically be useless why not give them some perk, like for example +1 jump and move, they ARE very light after all.

Ok, now that I said all that I can talk about wath I liked. First and formemost, freaking myrmidons AND bards! frog and debuff some one with you bard and the myrmidon will OHKO it! The expanded blumage arsenal! The now actually damaging ninja skills! Steal HP an MP! OSMOSE!! The differentiation of the elemental spells, GENIOUS!
The powered up mosters! FINALLY!!!
Event though it somehow resambles a lot the archer now, the "mustadio like" gunner is really cool.
Totema using themselves, if it was not for the  invisibility glich it would be awesome AND make a LOT of sense.
The much more balanced  fights, even though a 6 th party member would be much appeciated, it just feel odd to have a 6 member party at the start and only be able to use 5, I can see very well why tough.

Ok I'll shout my trap now, sorry for the rambling and the typos I defenitely made, sadly my keybord is unusable now and this one doesn't work very well, also english is not my first language.

[Eternal]

Just so you guys know, I've read your responses and haven't ignored you! I have a long-ish post in response, but I'm super busy until Wednesday night. I'll post my response then!

[rrs_kai]

I have found a few more bugs, some rare ones as well. By rare I mean things that have only happened once (difficult to reproduce).

I want to test these rare bugs and so am in need of a SWORDBREAKER to learn steal:weapon.
Any ideas on obtaining this ASAP?
I just beat babus (an hour long battle) and have also unlocked the first tier of upgrades in the shop.....if that helps.

Ah, I got an idea...I'll test it with aim:weapon. Interestingly, discovered something just by typing a post; nice.
still steal:weapon would be convenient as it is more accurate.
also not interested in using gameshark and/or codebreaker or any cheats.

*edit*
I tried using aim:weapon and failed in reproducing the one of the two bugs. The other one needed steal:armour and could be reproduced.

[SilverAuron]

I want to test these rare bugs and so am in need of a SWORDBREAKER to learn steal:weapon.
Any ideas on obtaining this ASAP?
I just beat babus (an hour long battle) and have also unlocked the first tier of upgrades in the shop.....if that helps.

Either do story missions until you unlock them in shops OR fight clan dip and savestate/reload the last hit untill you get it.
You might need a few tries but you should get it pretty quickly. I got all 4 steal equip weapons (not immediately sold) from them as soon as they appeard on the map .
I don't know if the chances are the same for every random, but they seem, to me, to drop more awesome stuff more often.

[rrs_kai]

You could in vanilla too, so I'l assume you were talking about adamant (EDIT: looks like you did XD),no, I only have one BUT I still got it before unlocking plate mail in and iron armor in the shop, so yeah. Also It seems like clan dip tends to drop better equipment all around (got the 4 steal equop knives from them almost immediatly after unlocking clan wars).

By adamant I mean Adamant Amour (heavy armour) with 58DEF IIRC (the paladin in Clan Dip has one equipped) not Adaman Gear (clothing). In vanilla you could only get one, post game and it was the strongest armor bar the growth armour (Peytral).

Either do story missions until you unlock them in shops OR fight clan dip and savestate/reload the last hit untill you get it.
You might need a few tries but you should get it pretty quickly. I got all 4 steal equip weapons (not immediately sold) from them as soon as they appeard on the map .
I don't know if the chances are the same for every random, but they seem, to me, to drop more awesome stuff more often.

Nice idea...though most of my drops were mithril weapons (claw, staff, saber).
I tried using aim:weapon and failed in reproducing one of the two bugs. The other one went well, needed steal:armour and could be reproduced.

Also I have taken screen shots to better present my posts and would like to know if its okay to attach around 10pics in the same post which makes the post very long.

[SilverAuron]

By adamant I mean Adamant Amour (heavy armour) with 58DEF IIRC (the paladin in Clan Dip has one equipped) not Adaman Gear (clothing).

Yes I know but when I respoded originally, you wrote Diamond, enche the edit.

[rrs_kai]

Yes I know but when I respoded originally, you wrote Diamond, enche the edit.

I did not edit that sentance...I do remember typing adamant because diamond gear is not rare, but oh well.
Also nice idea on Clan Dip drops...this makes me wonder if their drops were the same in vanilla FFTA. I do remember obtaining a swordbreaker at Lv.7 from a clan battle.

On another note, FFTA:GG force levels your characters, just beat Adramelleah at Lv.38 (was probably Lv.20 in the original)
All I wanted was new weapons for newer classes, but at this rate my Montblanc may not become a Mediator as I need one more gun (shops only have two)...experimenting is not as rewarding as vanilla FFTA.

Sure FFTA is easy, but on my first playthrough (first srpg) I liked that most missions could be beat with almost any class combination...but first timers are not the target audience for mods, although my second playthrough was a breeze.
The job point mechanic in FFT solves this (removing the need for equiement) but can be abused to no limit.
The skill point mechanic in Tactics ogre psp maybe a more fitting alternative for it is not as easy to abuse.

How about making it so that there are 2 or 3 basic ability teaching equipment for every class right from the game beginning so that all classes can be unlocked at any point (I like that you added greatbows). My bangaa remained warrior for near 35levels, recently changed to dragoon to unlock templar. Its not that basic classes are inferior, far from it (warriors/bards/soldiers are much better now)...but having so many new classes and not being able to toy with them feels underwhelming.
Adding ability teaching equipment maybe not be as easy for some weapons teach skills to multiple classes.

Also can anyone tell me if attaching 10screen shots (240x160) is acceptable?

[Kaijyuu]

Also can anyone tell me if attaching 10screen shots (240x160) is acceptable?

Stick them all up on imgur as an album and link to that.

[rrs_kai]

Stick them all up on imgur as an album and link to that.

Thanks to Kaijyuu for imgur suggestion. Also I was waiting for your post Eternal since this may delay yours; but please post it.
http://imgur.com/a/i0QSL is the link to the album (zoom the web browser if the images are too small, they are 240x160).

Before starting this post I am requesting for the complete doccumentation of FFTA:GG which includes all changes made to moves, equipment, skills...etc. This makes testing behaviour of bugs easier. (the black robe bug took me nearly an hour to narrow down because I had discovered that Mirage vest also had a bug in the process).

Interesingly the same save state can be used for FFTA:GG and vanilla FFTA...which is how I am checking equipment bugs.


::: Bugs :::

-When samurai equips a katana he can't equip a shield even with shieldbearer. Are they 2H as Silver Auron said, because the ninja on Mission: Antilaws (Ezel) has two Murasame equipped.
-The 'katana:Osafune' shows a learnable skill for samurai but he does not learn it.
-Dragoons can't use lancet unless a lance is equipped (this was not the case in vanilla FFTA).
-The fighter in Clan:Banisa has 'Aim' secondary but doesn't know any Aim skills.
-The mediator skills change direction of target if successful. Marche (who already was slowed) was facing west and got inflicted with sleep changing direction to south. His turn came and speed got reset and he turned to his original direction i.e. west (still asleep).
-When gun equipped mediators use aim:arm/aim:legs they became invisible and game gets stuck waiting for the animation. Doesn't happen if they don't have a gun equipped.
-Fortune Ring should null sleep/doom but it also prevents slow.
-Mirage vest now halves lightning.
-Black robe which enhances elemental magic and also gives innate geomancy.
-Absorb MP works even when asleep, even if the target doesn't wake up (like poisoning after sleep).
-Last:Berserk isn't working (it shows the animation but target doesn't get berserked).
-Scream shows 50% accuracy although it always works.

Below are bugs for which images are available as [numbers] which indicate the image number in the album.
http://imgur.com/a/i0QSL is the link to the album  (zoom the web browser if the images are too small, they are 240x160).

Totema using themselves, if it was not for the  invisibility glich it would be awesome AND make a LOT of sense.

-I fought Famfirt and he used his 'Calamity' about 5times..no freezes/invisibility there.
[1] Adrammelech dissappeared the 3rd time he used Flash arc (it had thundaga animation). He did not have a spell which imitates his 10JP totema skill.
[2,3] Whirlwind/Swallowtail's vertical tolerance during targeting does not match the tolerance of the actual move.
[4] Samurai skills use his MAG.POW and RES for damage calculation instead of WP.ATK and DEF.
[5] Samurai skills have infinite vertical tolerance.
[6,7] Mogknight dissapears after using revive. After that when he used moogle lance the animation never happened and the battle stuck there waiting for the damage calculation to happen.
[8] Mediator dissappears when using gun.
(help:aisenfield has 4 moogles. The mediator dissappeared after using a gun and mog knight dissappeared after using revive. The game proceeded smoothly and froze exactly after saying mission:cleared.........WHY NOW).
[8] Hit the same mediator using air blast with a mog knight in between and he did not counter even tough it highlighted COUNTER.
[9] Saving after (5 resets) finally clearing the mission (with invisible mediator) displays the save file with messed up text; it loads properly but the text does not go away.
[10,11,12] The last picture shows my bangaa's equipment and he did zero damage to the bomb, granade and firedrake. Can anyone tell me why because bombs/firedrakes are immune to fire and grenades are immune to ice. Also my equipment does not have elemental affinity (as of vanilla FFTA).
My guess for the above was bugged equipment; one ice-elemental and other fire-elemental (effectively nullifying all damge to bombs and grenades) but was proved wrong when I hit a character equipped with fire shield for non-zero damage.


::: Inconsistencies :::

-The elemantal spears now have the same attack power but their cost in the shops is not changed.
-I suspect that the above may also apply to the elemental blades (flametongue, airblade) but I don't have them unlocked (in the shop) yet.
-Although lightning and fire spells are 1 level weaker then ice spells, firaga is weaker than blizzara.
-The 'Satyr flute' has +1 move; in vanilla FFTA only growth equipment (from tourneys) gave movement bonus. Is this an intended change?


::: Rare bugs :::

Mission: Antilaws (Rescuing Ezel the first time)

-The samurai has secondary item. I stole his armour and he used draw weapon, and put away his sword as well. He keeps doing it every turn, never bringing out any weapon.I have never seen the AI put away items in vanilla FFTA, never knew it was possible (I know they requip).
I suspect this is happening because the original unit never had item secondary and hence doesn't have a virtual inventory mapped to bring out weapons from.
I tried reproducing this on other units using aim:weapon but didn't happen. So probably only that samurai didn't have a mapped virtual inventory.

-Using steal:armour on Clan Dip's templar steals only armour but his shield dissappears. Also happened to templar on the first encounter with babus (both had diamond armour and bolt shield). Does not happen when steal:shield is used.
Yes, this happens everytime I steal from Clan Dip's templar.
I cannot say if this only happens to templars because only they have diamond armour and bolt shield together. Also, it may not be dependant on the position of the item in the characters inventory as both the aforementioned templars have them equipped in different item slot positions. (Should've taken a picture of this on the second templar) Clan Dip uses slots 3&5 whereas the babus's templar used slots 2&3 (IIRC).

*edit*
The templar's s-ability is Half MP, he needs Shieldbearer to equip a shield.

::: Thoughts :::

-Summons need more vertical tolerance, kirin has 1h and ifrit 2h tolerance. Summons avoid friendly fire (but kirin targets enemies) and are 100% accurate. How about removing vertical limit to alleviate their high MP cost (they do appear from the sky).
-The game feels much less rewarding to fight missions out of the main story. I was Lv.22 when fighting the first totema. I have unlocked the new classes long ago but didn't have equipment to learn new skills.
-Characters level up very quickly because enemies are always a level or two higher than the party. This makes me wonder if clans ever reach Lv.50 because in vanilla FFTA they stopped at Lv.48
-Is it possible to increase all missions that give 40AP->50AP and 80AP->100AP. This makes it much less time consuming to learn skills because 40AP out of 50AP means two battles anyway. The reduced AP costs are great, but grinding for abilities can lead to unexpected level gains (am currently Lv.45 doing Nono's Jagd missions).
-Will concentrate be nerfed? because it still gives the 20% boost to status moves. Wasn't this one of the reasons why assassins were overpowered in vanilla FFTA.
-Will damage spill be introduced for manashield.
-Evade rates being lowered is nice but things like twister (AOE HP halving) is powerful and accurate; thieves have no need for thief gloves or concentrate for most part.
-I know I've said this before but 'earth heal' (heals the same as cure but has no AOE and costs more) seems incompetant to 'cure' either MP cost reduction or power up (to cura level as its still single target) would be appreciated.